1819, till the ports became closed. If such are the consequences of the accidental opening of an uncertain market, what would they be were it constantly free? The question has been already answered.

(17.) Nor is the effect of importation on the interest thus interfered with, one which can be estimated by a simple arithmetical calculation. It is perfectly well known, in every other market, that an over-supply inevitably occasions a far more than corresponding decline in price; one, indeed, not easily reducible to calculation, but not the less clearly understood. But, on this important point, I will avail myself of the language of a late work, which, as it appears to me, cannot be suspected of leaning too much to existing laws and privileges. "When it is considered that a comparatively very trifling supply beyond demand produces a very disproportionate effect upon the value of the aggregate quantity, it is certainly a duty incumbent on legislation to pause, ere, for the sake of experiment, they expose the several interests of the country to so extensive a change, as a comparatively trifling additional supply of corn is liable to occasion: that is, assuming forty as the quantity, and 240 as the value of the supply adequate to the demand, an increase of one has a tendency not merely to affect the value of the aggregate supply in its proportionate ratio of six, but of twelve; an increase of two, to the extent of thirty; and, of three, to the probable extent of eighty or one hundred. Consider, therefore, the produce of forty millions of acres of land (the quantity, or thereabouts, in a productive state in Great Britain) sufficient to yield an adequate supply; and 240 mil

lions per annum, its aggregate value; the importation of one, or two, or three millions of acres of a foreign soil must inevitably lead to one or the other of the two following results, namely, either the supplanting of the cultivation of a corresponding extent of soil at home, or a derangement in the value, in the proportion just previously exhibited: and then, as the money value of the produce of the soil has a necessary tendency to govern the money value of all other productions, the depreciation extends through all the productive classes, whilst all those who subsist on the state taxes, to the extent of £52,000,000,-on a renttax of £40,000,000,-and on mortgages, and on other fixed money incomes, to the extent of ten or fifteen millions per annum more, are all benefited in a ratio proportionate to the depreciation sustained by the productive classes. The progress, therefore, of the effect of an importation of corn beyond the demand for immediate consumption, is first to depreciate the money value, at the expense of the occupier of the land, to the extent of the depreciation, depending mainly on the extent of the importation: the effect on the depreciation on the occupiers of the land immediately manifests itself to the labourer, and all that class of handicrafts and tradesmen more immediately dependent upon the occupiers and labourers of the soil; and it is not till exhaustion and degradation pervade the whole of this portion of the community, that the rent-tax, or, in other words, the landed proprietor will be materially affected by the measure of importation'."

Statistical Illustrations, Disquisition, &c. pp. xix., xx.

Such are the views and calculations of these writers; and it may be added, that computations on a similar principle have been constantly made, since Davenant's time to the present'. It has been always known that a deficient supply enhances prices far beyond a mere arithmetic proportion; and it is as obviously, though not so alarmingly, true, that an excessive one has, inversely, a similar effect.

I copy a passage, from the same work, as to the effects of this measure on our interests, externally considered; some connected with which, it is allowed, may be individually benefited, as Locke had observed long ago: "But," it is added, "to use the pedantic language of the pseudo race of political philosophers, the benefit on an external interest is only arithmetical, whilst the derangement which it is likely to occasion (as previously shown), on the internal interests of the country, is geometrical. But say the advocates for importation and FREE TRADE, let the intercourse be free, and the thing will find its own level, and regulate itself. No doubt: let famine and its concomitant pestilence be free, and it will find its own level, and regulate itself. Had this doctrine been adhered to in Ireland, in 1822, Ireland might probably have found its own level, and regulated itself ere this. But further, say the advocates for importation and free trade, the advantages to be derived from an external trade in corn would produce such an internal excitement, by the increased remuneration for manufacturing labour, as to prevent that sort of depreciation and derangement here previously laid down. And was Davenant, Works, vol. ii. p. 224.

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the power of supply of natural and of manufactured (or artificial) productions equal, the position would deserve investigation. But, whilst the supply of one, in a comparative sense, may be considered limited, and the other infinite, the only tendency of an unrestrained intercourse is to increase the supply of the artificial productions, until they lead to such an exhaustion of the physical, and degradation of the moral character of society, as to threaten the entire annihilation of all social order 1."

(18.) The preceding forcible remarks have, in great measure, rendered it unnecessary for me to notice one grand argument in favour of importation, which is perpetually urged, and without which, indeed, the proposition would be a barefaced attempt to enrich a few at the expense of the increasing poverty and certain ruin of the country at large. It is this, that the measure would greatly increase, or, at any rate, secure our internal industry, by augmenting to an equal extent our foreign trade. Passing over the deep distress, and, indeed, the utter ruin which the measure would occasion to thousands in the transition, when those interests which had grown up and long flourished under a contrary system, would have to be at once trampled down and destroyed (considerations with which political economy never troubles itself); let us examine its pretensions on its own grounds. In the first place, it is not true, as far as arithmetic is concerned. Those countries from which we have received, and, on such a system, should again receive our principal supplies, I mean those to 'Statistical Illustrations, Disquisition, &c. p. xx.

which Mr. Jacob has directed our particular attention, are not the countries which have been the foremost to encourage our internal industry in return; on the contrary, they have been amongst the last and most backward so to do. And again, those years in which we have made the largest importations indicate very imperfectly that we should have any corresponding increase in the demand for the products of our internal industry, much less that the money account, and, what is of greater moment still, the labour account would be balanced, in such momentous transactions. We have seen Mr. Canning's statement of the enormous importations terminating in February 1819; what effect had these on our export trade? was it such as to compensate the putting out of employment, and pauperising or starving thousands of British labourers? There was, on the contrary, a falling-off of many millions in its amount, compared with any year since the peace; and, compared with 1815, of between twelve and thirteen millions, though the last-named year was one in which the ports were strictly closed, and less corn had come into the country than any year, save one, for the preceding three-and-twenty years.:

(19.) But supposing we were to concede that the countries from which we should import (and the argument has no possible application to any others) would take our manufactures to an equal amount in value; more they could not do-and it is far from clear, looking either at the past or the present times, that they would do that: the policy of the question is instantly decided, but in a very different manner to